by Dante Steel
“Why? Because I’m in here and you’re out there? Not forever.”
“You sure about that?” She pointedly wouldn’t look at him.
“I’m sure. I have to have faith.” He tilted his head, trying to get her to look at him. “Nicoletta, talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to say. Well, one thing. We can’t just go about killing the vampires. We also have to learn where Smaug is staying.”
“I have a guess as to that,” Gary said, shifting uncomfortably.
“Where?”
“Dracula’s castle, for lack of a better term for it.”
“Why do you think he’s there?”
“Because that’s where I lost him.”
Nicoletta muttered a curse. “If he gets the big bad on his side…”
“Nicoletta, he’s the big bad.”
“I realize that, but if he gets Dracula or whatever on his side—”
“Won’t change anything. Dracula would’ve always tried to kill us.”
She exhaled a deep breath. “I guess so. All right, so we’ll avoid the castle.”
“For as long as we can. There’s a crap ton of vampires on those mountains. We’ll have to clear them out eventually.”
“Hmm.”
“You have a plan?” he asked hopefully.
“Not right now. Maybe for later. Come on. You and I can start to go vampire hunting.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Gary grinned.
Together, they headed back toward the volcano. There weren’t a ton of vampires there, but Gary lassoed himself another fiery whip, and they cut over to the west. A cluster of twenty vampires were there, and they slew them in no time between his whip and her fireballs.
“You’re getting better at using that whip,” she commented. “Flicking that wrist like a pro.”
“I can think of another place where I’d like to use my whip-flicking talents.”
“Keep dreaming,” she retorted.
Farther down an ash-covered beach with no water, they killed more vampires. Most of the time, Gary had to connect the fiery whip with the vampires two or three times before the fire would catch on and burn them. Nicoletta’s fireballs had to be larger and wider to kill them.
“It’s taking more fire to kill them, isn’t it?” she muttered, wiping sweat from her brow.
“Yes, and that sun doesn’t seem to be weakening them any.”
“This shit is for the birds,” she muttered.
They came around to a bit of sand that masqueraded as quicksand. Each step was a chore, so Gary took to flying and aided Nicoletta so she could hover, too.
A sudden stampede of feet had Gary halting in mid-air. A large group of vampires were racing so fast along the sand that they were merely blurs.
“Rain down your fire!” Gary called.
Nicoletta did as he said, and he used his whip. The longer distance away from the vampires meant he had to use more wind to get the fiery whip down to meet them. Because of the increased wind, the fire from the whip was dimming some.
“Relight me?” he called.
“Sure!” Nicoletta sent him a blast of fire that nearly went all the way back up the whip to his arm.
“Temper it next time,” he shouted.
“Aw, come on, now. You’re on fire!” She winked at him and then slammed a fireball through a vampire’s face.
They were more powerful than before, but so were the vampires. It took some time for them to kill them all, and by that point, they were exhausted. Gary’s whip had gone out again. At least he had enough strength to fly them back to the entrance to the underground town.
Down in the tavern, they found Olivia behind the counter. The NPCs didn’t seem the happiest about her and Elena being back there, but they didn’t complain.
“How’s it going?” Nicoletta asked, leaning against the counter.
A perky bar wench with her tits hanging out approached. “Can I get you anything?” she chirped to Gary.
“You can cover up,” Nicoletta snapped.
“Cover up what?” the bar wench asked.
Nicoletta grabbed a cloth and placed it over the nearly exposed tits.
The bar wench removed the cloth and flittered her eyelashes at Gary. “Can I get you anything?”
“Four iced waters,” Gary said.
“Coming right up.” She jumped, her boobs somehow not popping out, and she disappeared into the back.
“Developers, making the bar wenches jump. What the hell?” Nicoletta grumbled.
“Don’t worry,” Gary said. “Your boobs are better.”
“You shouldn’t be looking.” She slapped him.
“Of course he looks,” Olivia said. “He’s a guy.”
“I don’t just notice a girl’s boobs,” he protested.
“Oh, so you’re an ass guy?” Elena asked.
He couldn’t believe this. “Why are you all ganging up on me?” he complained.
“You’re the one who wants all of us,” Nicoletta said.
Gary grew very uncomfortable, all the more so because he was also very hard. He pressed against the counter, trying to hide his bulge. “Ah, well, I think we need to work harder on killing the vampires instead of killing the mood.”
“There is no mood,” Elena said.
Olivia was mixing some water and oil, not that they mixed well. “Let’s try this,” she said. “I hope it works.”
“Even if it doesn’t, thank you for trying.”
Olivia lifted the bowl and then hesitated. “We might not want to do it out here.” She tilted her head toward where a group of five male gamers were watching them.
“Good point.”
They started to leave the tavern for their room when Gary heard Olivia add, “You know… you’re gonna get all wet. You might want to take your top off…”
Nicoletta shook her head. “You and her. So alike.”
“Because we’re open to love?”
“Because you want more than your fair share.”
“What is fair?”
Nicoletta closed her eyes. When she opened them, there were tears. It never ceased to amaze Gary how lifelike the avatars could be, how many emotions they could show, how amazing it felt to make love to one.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I regret that the first time we made love was when it was through your avatar, but I do not regret making love to you.”
“Was it making love? Or was it fucking?” she whispered.
“It was love,” he said firmly. “For me at least.”
She blew out a breath.
The bar wench returned with the waters and leaned over to give Gary an eyeful of her boobs as she placed each one down. “Anything else?” she asked.
“We’re good.”
“Holla if you need anything!” She jumped, boobs jumping too, and headed over to the five gamers.
“I don’t want upset you ever,” he said.
“When you came over before your birthday, when we were talking, that’s when I fell for you,” she said. “I wanted you then. I wanted to be with you. I never thought…”
“I didn’t intend to fall in love with you and Elena and Olivia. It just happened. Isn’t that how love is? It’s just something that sweeps over you? A tidal wave that you’re powerless to resist?”
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in love before, not true love.” She glowered at her water as if she resented it for not being vodka.
“I’ve never been in love before either, so imagine how I feel.”
“You’re crazy.”
“For all of you.”
She snorted. “I don’t know if I can do what you’re asking of me.”
“If you noticed, I haven’t come right out and asked.”
“True.” She offered him a wavering smile. “I’ll… I’ll let you know if I’m ready. If I ever am.”
“That’s fine by me.”
Nicoletta laughed and smiled. She lifted her water glass in cheers. “You don’
t have a choice,” she teased.
No, he really didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Not a minute alter, Elena and Olivia emerged from the back. Gary couldn’t help noticing that Elena’s superhero outfit wasn’t wet, which had him thinking that she had taken off her clothes and dried off before getting dressed again. Fuck, he had just calmed down, and now he was all turned on again.
“Better now?” he asked.
“Yes.” Elena beamed.
“Sorry you aren’t,” Olivia whispered in his ear as she walked by. He glanced at her, and she winked. Gary just shook his head.
“We need to come up with a game plan,” Nicoletta said. “We need to kill as many vampires as possible.”
“Any ideas?” Elena asked.
“Can we use the volcano again?” Olivia suggested. “All that lava goodness and heat just waiting to burn vampires to ashes.”
“Not a bad idea,” Gary said. “How can we lure the vampires over there, though?”
“Easy enough.” Elena shrugged. “Bait.”
“Have you seen how fast those vampires are?” Nicoletta asked. “We can’t outrun them. We’d be killed! We’ve barely able to kill them fast enough as it is.”
“Believe me, I know. I’m the one who has to kill them barehanded, face to face. It’s not easy.”
“You do make it look easy, though,” Olivia said.
“I try.”
“Olivia and I can lure them,” Gary said. “We can fly. They can’t reach us.”
“They won’t want to go into the volcano, though, and there will be too many for them to be magically thrown in,” Nicoletta said, the wheels in her head clearly churning.
“Could you make it erupt?” Elena suggested.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said. “I doubt I’ll be able to control it, all of that ash… other gamers could get swept in it.” She snapped her fingers. “Do you think you can smash the sand through enough so that I can release the pressure and cause more geysers? If you did it in a ring, we might be able to make it collapse and form a dome-less volcano that they could fall into.”
“I don’t see why not.”
“All right. Seems to me we have a plan.” Gary rubbed his hands together. “We ready to do this?”
Olivia and Nicoletta just stared at him.
“Oh. Need to sleep, huh?”
“Yes, please,” Nicoletta begged.
“We’ve been going for so long that we aren’t even standing up to play.”
“Seriously?” Gary scratched the back of his head. “You can play while sitting? I didn’t realize that.”
All three of them burst out laughing.
“You told me he wasn’t much of a gamer,” Olivia said. “I didn’t believe you.”
“He does a good job acting like he knows what he’s doing, but he’s just winging it,” Nicoletta said.
“You can almost forget at times. Not bad, rookie.” Elena winked.
Gary threw up his hands. “Go to sleep, you two, and leave me be,” he complained, pretending to be upset.
The girls laughed and said goodnight and vanished.
Elena turned to him. “Want to hunt some vampires or go to sleep?”
“We should probably sleep.”
“You know Smaug’s out there, gaining levels and power and spells,” she said darkly.
“I know, but we can’t think clearly if we don’t sleep. We have to survive this. We have to get you back home.”
“Hey.” She crossed over to him and took his hands in hers. “We have to get back home. Not just me.”
He nodded. “I know. I just… I don’t know what will be waiting for me.”
“We’ll make it work.”
Gary nodded again, but he couldn’t help wondering what she meant by “it.”
When Gary woke the next morning, Elena was sitting up in bed. He wanted to reach over and rub her back, but he refrained, not certain how she would take such a tender, intimate gesture.
“Good morning,” he said.
She flashed him a smile over his shoulder. “Good morning. Ready to kick some vampire ass?”
“You know it.”
After a quick breakfast—Gary sure was getting tired of berries and almost stale bread—they went topside. Olivia and Nicoletta weren’t anywhere in sight, so they slowly walked over toward the volcano. Along the way, they had to take care of no fewer than sixty-six vampires.
“I really hope there is a finite number of them,” she muttered.
“There has to be,” Gary said. “The wizard told us that to become megaheroes, we have to kill them.”
“Yes, but with Smaug tampering with the game…”
“You would think the developers could help with that.”
“Any updates from Haru lately?”
“No.” Gary shrugged and rubbed his chin. “I think I’ve pissed him off the last couple of times we spoke.”
“No wonder. You have every right to be upset.”
“Yeah, but being upset and being a dick are two different things.”
“Only for some guys,” she teased.
“Haha.”
By the time they arrived at the volcano, the other girls were already there. A few hugs, and Nicoletta and Elena were walking off, figuring out where and when exactly Elena should punch.
“It can’t be too quickly. If it’s too early,” Nicoletta was saying, “then the vampires will be able to readjust and move out of the way.”
“But I still need time to get out of dodge myself,” Elena pointed out.
“Yes. Hopefully, since Gary and Olivia will be leading them here, they should be able to sweep both of us into the air so we’ll all be safe.
“We got this,” Olivia said. “Ready for us to grab ‘em?”
Nicoletta gave them the thumbs up signal.
Olivia grabbed Gary’s hand. “Let’s go!”
They took off and zoomed toward the mountains. The moment the castle came into sight in the distance, Olivia tried to adjust closer to it.
“I want to see,” she said, tugging on his arm.
“No,” he said firmly.
“But—”
“It’s a dark place,” he said grimly. “I don’t want to go there.”
“A dark place? Gary, do you believe in auras?”
“If you asked me before I saw that place, I would’ve said no. Now…”
“Really? People who can sense auras have always interested me,” she said.
“So, I’m not crazy?”
“I don’t know. Sensing an aura in a game is kinda weird.”
“Being in a game is kinda weird,” he pointed out.
“True.”
“And games typically have sound tracks. If you combine a creepy place with evil music…”
“Yeah, okay, an atmospheric place in a game could give off auras after all. I’m sorry. Hadn’t thought of it like that.” She exhaled.
“Are you okay?”
“Me? Okay? Yes, sure, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You seem off.”
“Vampires ahoy!” she shouted.
“How convenient.”
“Very.” She grinned at him.
“We’re talking about this later.”
“If we survive!” She waved. “Hallo, vampires! How you doing?” she called as she sensually lifted her chin.
The vampires stared up at her. They had clearly been doing something, but Gary couldn’t tell what. Abruptly, they began to race up the mountain until they were level with Gary and Olivia.
And then they leaped off the face of the mountain.
Instead of falling, they turned into hundreds of bats.
Not tiny bats, either, but huge, massive ones with equally massive wings, and the speed, yeah, the bats had their superspeed.
“Fly!” Gary shouted, releasing Olivia’s hand so she could concentrate on evasive maneuvering.
He flew as fast and as zigzaggy as he could. Gary did not
want to be bitten. He didn’t want to be devoured. He didn’t want to be consumed by darkness.
Down below, he spied other gamers. They pointed up at him, and he ignored them, flying by.
That was when he heard it. Hundreds of feet sweeping over the sand at impossible speeds.
Not all of the vampires had turned to bats. Most had remained as vampires, and they were giving chase all right.
Gary had to use his powers to keep the vampire bats away from him. One entangled in Olivia’s hair, ready to bite her. She shrieked, and suddenly, the bat was a hundred feet below her. She shook her head, gave the bat the bird, and flew on.
He grinned. She was something else.
Swooping over, he grabbed her hand again, encompassing her in the area where he was keeping the bats back. He sure hoped the other girls were ready.
The volcano was in sight now. They only had a little more to go. Just a little farther. Just a little more.
Down below, Gary couldn’t sense them. He couldn’t feel Nicoletta or Elena. Where were they?
“I don’t see any of the geysers,” Olivia whispered. “Shouldn’t we have passed some?”
She was right. They were almost on top of the volcano by now. What in the world was going on?
Gary jerked hard, banking to the right, and they flew over the top of the volcano.
Ice. All of it was crystalized in a beautiful but devastating lattice pattern.
“Smaug,” he muttered the name as if it were a curse. “He must have been here. He must have realized we were going to try and destroy his followers. Our plan was too simple, too easy for him to figure out.”
“You don’t think he was here already, that he… he…”
“Olivia, they’re fine.”
“How can you be so sure? So calm?” she wailed.
“Because he wants all of us,” he said grimly. “He wants to kill us all.”
“Again, how can you be sure that he didn’t—”
“He is a sick, twisted individual. He’ll want to kill us in front of each other. To him, it’s all about power. Right? Isn’t that what your courses told you?”
“Yes,” she murmured, sounding stronger and slightly less frightened. “But now what? Clearly, they aren’t here, but we can’t have all of these vampires following back to… he’s at the castle, isn’t he?”
“I betcha he is. As for the vampires, we’ll handle them.”